OpenStreetMap

Quickly adding lots of notes with OsmAnd

Posted by Pieter Vander Vennet on 16 April 2018 in English. Last updated on 31 December 2019.

Today, I got the question how I quickly added a ton of notes. I use OSMAND for this, with a few tweaks.

Setup

  1. Enable the ‘OSM Editing plugin’
  2. Under configure screen, enable ‘Quick action’. You find it right on top
  3. Go back to the map; you’ll notice a new button on the lower right side, just above the plus-button.
  4. Press this ‘quick action button’. A new menu pops up.
  5. Press ‘add action’ and choose ‘Add OSM Note
  6. In the following menu, make sure to enable ‘Show an interim dialog’ and press ‘apply’

Adding a note

  1. Press the quick action button
  2. An orange marker appears. Swipe the map to position the marker above the note location.
  3. Press ‘Add OSM Note’
  4. Enter the note text in the popup and press OK
  5. Your note now appears as green circle with an ‘i’ on the map
  6. Repeat for all the notes

For now, your note is not send over to OSM.org but remains on your own device!

Uploading all your notes

EDIT: M!dgard figured out a way to make this step obsolete and to import them directly into JOSM. See his diary entry here

After surveying, you’ll have a ton of notes. To upload them all at once:

  1. Go to ‘My Places’
  2. Go to the third tab: ‘OSM Edits’
  3. Press the upload button in the lower left corner (pointing up)
  4. Select the notes you want to upload. If you want to upload them all, press the checkbox left of ‘your edits’
  5. Press the upload button in the upper right corner
  6. Enter your credentials and hit OK.

You can also enter your credentials with the ‘OSM Editing’ plugin settings, so that you don’t have to enter them over and over again.

Adding POI

If you are gonna add a lot of POIs with the same presets (e.g. benches, AED, …), you can also make a quick action for that. Play around!

Discussion

Comment from ralley on 17 April 2018 at 00:58

Thanks for that, looks like it will make using OsmAnd to add POIs much quicker.

Comment from dave683 on 6 January 2019 at 17:30

👍

Comment from mds08011 on 12 April 2019 at 00:06

When configuring quick action presets for POIs, is it possible to set a changeset description?

Comment from Pieter Vander Vennet on 12 April 2019 at 10:05

AFAIK not

Comment from M!dgard on 31 December 2019 at 10:22

Following up, here’s how to add personal survey notes. You can now avoid uploading them and instead view them all in JOSM: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/M!dgard/diary/391761

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